Marcy Wheeler: 83 Waterboardings, 10 Pieces of Intel

When we last heard from Marcy Wheeler of the EmptyWheel blog, she was doing the legwork that the New York Times needed done for their story on how Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah were, between the two of them, waterboarded 266 times.

And that sure is a big number and a lot of ticking time bomb clocks, right there! And with torture defenders -- including newly minted fan of full-disclosure Dick Cheney -- insisting on all the great good their sadism achieved, it sort of begs the question: What did all that waterboarding really get us? Well, Wheeler's on this nonstop, and has dug down into the available documentation that pertains to the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah, who was subjected to 83 sessions during the month of August in 2002.

We already have a way to assess how much intelligence we got directly from torturing Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: the 9/11 Report. After all, the 9/11 Report integrates a huge amount of information from interrogation reports, and cites them all meticulously. As early as June 6, 2003, the 9/11 Commission asked for, ""all TDs and other reports of intelligence information obtained from interrogations" of forty named individuals, including Abu Zubaydah and (apparently) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and they used what they got in return to write their report. So if there was useful information in those reports, they presumably got it.

Here was a bipartisan group--including many staffers and members with extensive national security backgrounds--attempting to learn everything it could about al Qaeda, poring through interrogation reports produced as a result of torture, tracking inconsistencies in the intelligence, corroborating that intelligence where possible with documents and other testimony, and ultimately selecting what it felt was useful in telling the story of al Qaeda. While certainly not a perfect assessment of what was useful (I'll explain why below), it provides one of the best unbiased ways to measure how useful this intelligence was.

And in the case of Abu Zubaydah, such an assessment is horrifying.

In the entire 9/11 Report, just ten pieces of information are sourced to Abu Zubaydah's interrogation reports.

Wheeler's got a timeline from March 2002 to February 2004, where she unpacks both the significant decisions that governed Zubaydah's detainment and itemizes the intel gleaned from interrogation. Wheeler's diligence and detail is superlative. There's just no substitute for the full Monty, so do make sure you take in all of her work. But in the narrow interest of summarization, here's what 83 trips to the waterboard got us:

1. "Abu Zubaydah describes his role running the Khaldan and Derunta training camps."

2. "Abu Zubaydah describes Rahim al-Nashiri's success as a recruiter."

3. "AZ describes Bin Laden's popularity."

4. "AZ gives tempered description of KSM's popularity."

5. "AZ insisted there were no ties between al Qaeda and Iraq."

6. "AZ claims Bin Laden expanded the scope of KSM's original plan."

7. "AZ provides description of the origins of "the Encyclopedia," a terrorist training manual created during the anti-Soviet campaign."

8. "AZ provides a description of Bin Laden's actions after the Cole bombing."

9. "AZ provides information on Abu Turab, who reportedly conducted the final training for the 9/11 plotters."

10. "AZ provides a comment on whether Saudis were selected for the 9/11 plot specifically."

Again, Wheeler has better details on each of these pieces of intelligence, and also has appropriately provided caveats, explaining how this is not "a perfect measure of the value of AZ's intelligence." Still, she's pieced out some significant findings. The intelligence on the training camps that tops the list, for example, was obtained before the CIA's use of torture was authorized. "Thus," Wheeler notes, "it either came from persuasive, rather than coercive, techniques. Or it came from treatment that had not been legally approved."

Additionally, Wheeler notes that the information on al Qaeda recruiter Rahim al-Nashiri is the only piece of intel Zubaydah provided during the period of time he was being waterboarded. And, the possibility remains that the information gleaned from Zubaydah may have made the difference in al-Nashiri's capture. Still, that's the only part of this that even remotely looks like a ticking time bomb. Frankly, I'd note the irony of capturing a terrorist recruiter using intelligence gained from waterboarding, which makes such recruitment easier.

The remainder of this intelligence documented here is of the sort that interrogators like Matthew Alexander suggest can be obtained without torture.

Among her detailed conclusions, Wheeler includes this:

So the experience of the 9/11 Commission--in addition to what they tell us about the inefficacy of the torture--also suggests that the entire interrogation system, with compartmented interrogators working in secret locations, who didn't have the appropriate language skills or a solid understanding of al Qaeda, did not produce usable intelligence. Cheney wants to argue that torture produced intelligence--but the 9/11 Commission makes it clear that it wasn't usable intelligence.

MORE:
Abu Zubaydah: Waterboarded 83 Times for 10 Pieces of Intelligence [EmptyWheel]

Comments

[sbvpav]

11:38 AM on 04/23/2009

thanks to the excellent investigative reporting done by the mcclutchy newspaper, we now know torture was used - not to keep us safer or to stop a second attack - but to gin up a predetermined invasion of a country that did not harm us on 9/11 but instead a country cheney et. al wanted the oil!

[hollybork]

11:06 AM on 04/23/2009

To discuss the "usefulness of torture" is not the point. What we are really talking about here is the motives of a few embarrassed and incompetent public officials seeking to gin up a story to make themselves look better, and inflict vengeance on people who had embarrassed them.

Torture is history's way of preserving vengeance and spite. It is horrifying to see or even contemplate. To inflict pain in order to extract bogus confessions is the usual point. We have dealt extensively with that issue in our domestic law. The Supreme Court understood that when it outlawed confessions extracted with cruelty, and evidence found from such extreme measures is also banned as "fruit of the poisonous tree." The Supreme Court has created a disincentive for our police to use abusive treatment for confessions, by barring evidence produced through that process.

That Supreme Court law is not going to change anytime soon.

Since Gen Washington's time, we have seens ourselves as too enlightened to do what tyrants and torturers did. We have foresworn cruel and usual punishment of prisoners of crimes and of war. We have influenced international law on this issue for many years. We have earned a reputation over hundreds of years as being a nation that is englightened and just, not one that is cruel, bestial, brutal and sadistic. Such heinous acts as waterboarding, beating, stripping, humiliating an enemy part of history, but not part of our own rise as a great empire.

[DeSwiss]

10:21 PM on 04/24/2009

Excellent. Very well put.

It is the only point that matters in the end....

[OldFreddie]

11:04 AM on 04/23/2009

I watched a documentary made by some Frenchmen who just happened to be filming a New York City fire company on 9/11, and the one horrific memory I will always carry with me is the sound of people crashing to the sidewalk after jumping out of windows to escape being burned to death in one of the towers. I cannot pass judgement on what was done after the horror of 9/11, as people, both Democrat and Republican, were caught up in the emotion of the moment and were guided by a totally different perspective than we all have here in 2009, eight years later with no attack on our homeland since that horrific day. Seems to me that the Congress has a lot more important matters on its plate right now than to start a witch hunt that will surely demoralize the intelligence community and end up dividing this country even more than it already is. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon in what was a disasterous political move for Ford. But, in retrospect, Ford is now credited with helping a nation heal after the Watergate years. Hopefully President Obama will find in himself the same courage to put country first before what may very well turn out to be dubious political gain.

[sviolette]

11:16 AM on 04/23/2009

If Obama were to do as you suggest it would be illegal too. It's called obstruction of justice.

[ClevelandTom]

12:19 PM on 04/23/2009

I agree that prosecuting CIA or military operatives for doing torture is not worthwhile, unless some of them did on their own authority. But far more important is to find out just how Bush admin officials came to the absurd conclusion that torture was legal and justified, and passed the instructions to do it down the chain of command. When we know that, we and Congress will know what we need to do to prevent it from happening again. Prosecution of senior officials might serve as a deterrent to future administrations but I am more inclined to think that there are legislative solutions, much like the FISA laws that dealt with the excesses of the Nixon administration.

[judiNJ]

11:00 AM on 04/23/2009

After the first terrorist attach on the World Trade Center in Feb. 1992, all of the terrorists except one were arrested (including the blind Sheik in my home town). They were tried in a US court of law, convicted and are in prison in the US since then. They were NOT tortured but the information regarding al Qaeda was still discovered and President Clinton kept the country safe (including the arrest of a suspect en route to LA from Canada on New Year's Eve 2000). When GW became president, that information was passed onto the new administration which chose to ignore it, thus 9/11. So, who kept us safe? I truly believe if we get hit again, Dick Cheney's rantings on Fox will have helped to precipitate it. Oh, and by the way, I saw both of those attacks and STILL the idea of The United States of America torturing someone in my name makes me sick.

[Knowbetter]

11:48 AM on 04/23/2009

Bravo!

[carolinecantoo]

12:37 PM on 04/23/2009

ditto

[ICanHasDemocracy]

10:09 AM on 04/23/2009

not cost-effective. That's like making 1 good car for 8 lemons.
There is a reason why Democratic societies don't do it- IT DOESN"T WORK!

[ClevelandTom]

10:15 AM on 04/23/2009

All true but the most important reasons democratic societies don't torture is morality and law.

[Alboots]

10:05 AM on 04/23/2009

I care about these two guys...... WHY?

[swanie]

10:15 AM on 04/23/2009

It has NOTHING to do with "these two guys".

It has to do with the RULE OF LAW.

Get it ? Probably not.
.

[RedInGeorgia]

10:23 AM on 04/23/2009

To quote John McCain (and I really reluctantly do so in a positive light), but...

"It's not about who they are; it's about who we are."

[ClevelandTom]

10:00 AM on 04/23/2009

Bush/Cheney/Torture supporters refer to Cheney's demand that the results of "enhanced interrogation" be declassified as proof that the technique must have been successful. But this article indicates otherwise. Logic also indicates otherwise. If there had been successes, Bush/Cheney would have found a way to get them into the media for the political advantage it would provide.

Cheney is just being a shrewd operative with his demand to declassify the results. He makes the demand and if the Obama admin says there are none then Cheney claims they are hiding them for political reasons. How can the Obama admin prove the negative that there were no successes? They can't. Nobody can. So if Cheney is lying, and he probably is, no one can prove it.

[sviolette]

11:00 AM on 04/23/2009

It doesn't matter if it resulted in any intelligence. Torture is illegal someone needs to explain that to Mr Cheney.

[hollybork]

11:11 AM on 04/23/2009

You are right. Cheney claims he had the public's safety in mind. He is trying to cover himself somehow by misdirecting us into a discussion of how effective torture is. He not deluding me.

What amazement then I feel when I speak to everyday Americans, finding that perhaps half of them want to throw this tradition of enlightened justice out, and abandon the moral high ground.

How do you account for the fact that up to half of Americans are not categorically against torture, and if push came to shove would absolve a government official, law enforcement officer, soldier or investigator for engaging in torture if they regarded that person as having the best interests of the American People at heart, or were under compelling order from their supervisors to do it.

This fact of the public's conditional acceptance compels us to engage in an investigation that is deep enough to put the people who approved this under cross examination and get the entire motivation and dispel all the detritus of the "permament campaign."

[timberdoodle]

09:34 AM on 04/23/2009

Anyone trying to justify using torture against another human being definitely has some severe mental issues and is in dire need of therapy.

If their rational for using torture is that it might save some lives from terrorists down the road then the same rational could be used for some sicko assassinating a government official to prevent someone from being tortured down the road. Both would be barbaric and dumb.

[MissingAmerica]

09:30 AM on 04/23/2009

The ends don't justify the means. This is pure sadism on the part of the U.S. administration and should not go unprosecuted. If Bush sticks to his defense that God told him to wage this war, perhaps we should waterboard him a few times and see if that little nut cracks! As for Cheney, he's already been arrogant enough to admit his part in this insanity, so we could just waterboard him to show him how it feels. After that, a full ban on waterboarding and automatic prosecution of anyone who uses this interrogation tactic.

[ClevelandTom]

10:19 AM on 04/23/2009

I don't think the Bush people used torture for sadistic reasons. I think they did it because they feared that if there was a second successful terrorist attack on the U.S. then they would suffer politically. So to them a little thing like the law and morality were minor obstacles to be overcome to ensure re-election.

[sviolette]

11:03 AM on 04/23/2009

We need more people with the smarts of Bush and Cheney. Not!!!

[TreadingWater]

12:28 PM on 04/23/2009

You don't think subjecting someone to waterboarding 6 times a day for a month is not sadistic? If waterboarding worked, why did they have to do it 183 times? There has to be diminishing returns for using the same tactic over and over. 183 times in a month isn't interrogation, it's punishment.

[hollybork]

11:02 AM on 04/23/2009

I agree with you completely.

Let's be clear. The evidence is mounting that torture was used by our nation not out of a desire to avert disaster. That was merely a cover story. The reason it was used was to keep the propoganda machine going.

Torture was well thought out and implemented for the typical old reason: to elicit false information and to inflict vengeance on people. Those people were representatives of the ones whose success on 9/11 had personally embarrased certain high ranking individuals who were supposed to protect us. Those people included Cheney, Rice, Feith, Addington, Ashcroft and Tenet. They ignored all warnings leading to the death of nearly 3,000 people, and had blood on their hands and heavy heavy consciences. They were the ones that decided to use torture and twisted the whole system sideways to fulfill their desire for revenge and false information.

[bamvol]

09:03 AM on 04/23/2009

Operatives and attorneys within the Obama Administration should be put on notice to archive (and not shread) any emails, memos, meeting notes, and policy decisions that reveal the unraveling or undermining of any current counter-terrorism program.

These documents will be needed for any future 9/11 style Commission that needs to be convened in the future following ANY terrorist attack on the US, the US military, any US ally, or any US interest in the world. The US had too many of these attacks around the world leading up to 9/11 and so few since then.

The limitation of attacks on US interests since 9/11 were probably a direct result of a series of programs put in place since 9/11, and these programs were the result of bi-partisan acknowledgements of the need to protect the US from futher attack.

Any documents that show or recommend the removal of these counter-terrorist programs must be retained for future review to determine if the removal of these programs might have lead to any future attack. The American people must be able to connect the dots in any futrue review process.

[SpoxLogic]

10:03 AM on 04/23/2009

What a load of crap, bamvol. The reason why we didn't get attacked after 9-11 was just pure luck. That and the fact that all the terrorist were flocking to Iraq to find easy targets in our soldiers. So, what Bush did was effectively sacrifice other American lives along with 10 times or more in innocent Iraqi lives in order to make us feel protected.
But, I bet that doesn't bother you one bit does it? Since we all know an American life is worth at least 100 non-AMerican lives.

And BTW, if the Bush admin had put half as much effort into following up on the pre-9-11 intelligence as they did trying to get a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, then 9-11 would never have happened. Funny thing about that is all this pre-9-11 intel was obtained without doing any torturing.

Imagine that.

[ClevelandTom]

10:05 AM on 04/23/2009

"The limitation of attacks on US interests since 9/11 were probably a direct result of a series of programs put in place since 9/11, and these programs were the result of bi-partisan acknowledgements of the need to protect the US from futher attack. "

That is a huge assumption and probably incorrect. After the invasion of Iraq, AQ publically stated that it was their intention to peel away U.S. allies. This the attacks in Spain, UK and elsewhere. AQ had plenty of US targets in their backyard of Iraq and also focused attention there. In other wors, there is plenty of reason to believe that the reason there was no AQ attack on the U.S.-proper after 9/11 is that they didn't try.

[Ginger Ale]

08:57 AM on 04/23/2009

It has been proven that torture is not the answer to get reliable and credible information. When an individual gets torture multiple times, this person will eventually tell the interrogator whatever he/she wants to hear. Think about the European witch craze back in the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. These women were obviously not WITCHES, but because subject to torture they eventually claimed to be witches. Violence has never been the answer to any problem, especially as a solution to a war. Violence in the form of torture is just WRONG and embarrassing for citizens of a nation.

[imaDem4Life]

08:45 AM on 04/23/2009

If you tried to drown me those many times in a month, then I would tell you what I thought you wanted to hear just to make it stop. I don't believe I am unique. So, with those 10 bullet points of intel, how would investigators know the truth from the lies. I guess it didn't matter. This torture made the torturers, apologists, and authorizers feel like they were getting revenge for 9/11. Nothing more, nothing less. The prospect of losing the US's moral authority in the world never entered the equation of whether torture was a good method of interrogation.

[newpantaloons]

09:49 AM on 04/23/2009

What the interrogators were after was a 'good excuse', a link of Saddam Hussein and Iraq to the 9/11 attacks. They had planned this for years (look at the Project for a New American Century) and needed a "new Pearl Harbor" for the American people to go along with an invasion of Iraq for the Contracts! and the oil. They did not waterboard for revenge (perhaps some) but waterboarded to get false confessions from prisoners. These 'confessions' were already written out and sitting on the table next to the waterboard. All the prisoner had to do was 'sign the confession'. Then Dick Cheney (the REAL power behind the throne) had the 'excuse' to go on national TV and lie with abandon.

Obama, you had better figure this out for America and the future of our country or you are NO BETTER than they are. We signed on for "change you can believe in" and I am having a hard, hard time 'believeing' in covering for torturers!

[ClevelandTom]

10:08 AM on 04/23/2009

Correct and, in fact, when you attend our own military's SERE school they teach you to either lie or provide harmless information in order to get torture such as waterboarding to stop.

[mollyjackson]

08:28 AM on 04/23/2009

President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists. “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday. Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing the use of interrogation methods that the Obama White House has deemed to be illegal torture. The postive aspects of the interrogation was blacked out by the administration. Once again change that we can beleive in...but not for the better.

[RoloTomassi]

08:49 AM on 04/23/2009

Your assertion is a simple-minded regurgitation of GOP BS; Blair is a Bush hold-over, and isn't in the least credible.

[TheBender]

09:17 AM on 04/23/2009

Is any dissenting opinion ever credible?

[gloriousbeing]

09:56 AM on 04/23/2009

He also said that we could not be sure that we would not have gotten the SAME information without waterboarding.
So, mollyjackson, why did you NOT include that part of his statement???? I am suspect of what you say when you fail to disclose the entire statement - it makes you appear to have a partisan agenda.

[TheBender]

08:08 AM on 04/23/2009

Questions for the Lefties.

Why do you think that Navy Seals (God Bless Them) are waterboarded during training?

If your child or mother were held hostage, is it OK to waterboard one of the responsible terrorists?

What should happen to Pelosi, et al, since they signed off on allowing waterboarding techniques to be used?

Note: Lucid remarks only, please.

[writerjohnny]

08:24 AM on 04/23/2009

Question 1. Because they might get TORTURED
Question 2. No
Question 3. Provide a link to the documentation of exactly who "signed off" on waterboarding and we should prosecute them all. Right now, and you can check the links elsewhere on HuffPo, it's a judge, some lawyers, Cheney and Rice.

Note: Since you posed questions I assume you meant "lucid answers" and not "lucid remarks".

[destruct1]

08:30 AM on 04/23/2009

you won't get any lucid remarks from them. If these enhanced interrogations is ALL that our enemies did to our guys i'd be ecstatic.......but they would prefer cutting heads off, electrocution, dragging their dead bodies through the street, etc...etc.... This "to.r.ture" is just fine with the left...but "enhanced interrogations" isn't. Now that is demented.

[Hatsone]

07:59 AM on 04/23/2009

Republicans will not recover from this disgraceful moment in history.